Call for the Fourth Crusade

Background

Innocent III was elected pope in January 1198 at the age of thirty-seven. Recovering Jerusalem was one of the central aims of his pontificate. With Henry VI's death Germany had fallen into a struggle for the throne, and war continued between England and France, so the great rulers could not be expected to join.

The appeal and organisation

The bull Post miserabile, issued in August 1198, called for a new expedition, criticising the loss of Jerusalem and the negligence of Christian rulers. The crusade was to begin in March 1199. In 1199 Innocent ordered, for the first time in history, a tax of one-fortieth on the revenues of all clergy for the crusade.

In France preachers such as Fulk of Neuilly preached the crusade. In November 1199, at a tournament at Écry in Champagne, Count Theobald of Champagne and Count Louis of Blois took the cross; Count Baldwin of Flanders then joined them. After Theobald's death in 1201, the leadership passed to Marquis Boniface of Montferrat.

Outcome and significance

In 1201 the leaders contracted with Venice to transport the army to Egypt. The huge debt under this contract and participation far below the expected number of soldiers led the crusade to turn to Zara and then Constantinople. Innocent tried to prevent these diversions but failed.

The Fourth Crusade clearly showed the gap between the papacy's power to launch a crusade and its power to direct it.

Sources and debates

Innocent's letters and bulls are preserved in the papal registers. Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Robert of Clari describe the organisation of the crusade as participants. Whether the diversion to Constantinople was a premeditated plot or the result of a series of accidents and constraints is a long-debated question among historians.